Blood Simple (1985)
Directed by Joel Coen
The owner of a seedy small-town Texas bar discovers that one of his employees is having an affair with his wife. A chaotic chain of misunderstandings, lies and mischief ensues after he devises a plot to have them murdered.
5 connections found
View:
5 films that influenced Blood Simple
What critics say influenced Blood Simple
At moments, the awkwardness of the line readings is reminiscent of George Romero’s “Night of the Living Dead,” but “Blood Simple” doesn’t have the genuine creepiness of the Romero film.
But all of them are present in “Blood Simple”: the anarchic, apocalyptic black humor of “Strangelove,” the bleak and beautiful fatalism of Bertolucci’s Fascist-era thriller and the devious, cynical philosophy of Harry Lime, Orson Welles’ unforgettable character in “The Third Man.”
We have an innocent man becoming entangled in a murderous affair, the classic voyeuristic scenes with the detective, and even one of the finest scenes shot inside a moving car in a driving rain since Psycho .
It's of the same sin that wrought 1975's "Chinatown" and 1992's "Reservoir Dogs."
Advertisement
Written while Joel Coen was working on Sam Raimi's The Evil Dead (1982), Blood Simple incorporates many of the athletic, erratic camera techniques that make all three of Raimi's Evil Dead films so stunning.